Enthusiastic Reader > Recent Status Updates

p 192 - "Our goal is to develop schools that girls don't describe as 'jails' or 'prisons.' This terminology has become so ingrained in their consciousness and experiences that it can be difficult for them to consider what a school that is not governed by discipline looks and feels like."

p 191 - "Girls also suggested that the instructors for these courses should possess knowledge of 'street' culture and be willing to share information about how to overcome the common obstacles (poverty, parental drug addiction, etc.) that they have found overwhelming in their own lives." However, a previous felony conviction may prevent candidates from obtaining a teaching license.

p 189, continued - Stripping Black girls of the ability to ask questions and process information through dialogue is culturally incompetent and antithetical to their development as critical thinkers."

p 189 - "Thee girls want to talk, and they need a learning culture that encourages them to talk as part of building community in the classroom or school. They must be allowed to ask questions, to respectfully offer their opinion (even if it differs from the instructor's opinion), and to learn through an extended epistemology that honors their multiple ways of knowing and learning. (continued)

p 186 - "Treating a girl's ideas or 'smart mouth' as violent when they are reflective of her critical thinking is outside the parameters of being trauma-informed."

p 186 - "Ultimately the vandalism of school property or a school-based altercation must be seen as an opportunity to understand and respond to the conditions that underlie this plea for help, rather than just an act worthy of suspension or expulsion."

p 184 - "The protocol should be explicit and clearly define the actions that warrant removal from the classroom, such as fighting or threatening another student or the teacher with physical harm. The category of "willful defiance" should be eliminated by state and local governing bodies, such that schools are required to exhaust all other remedies before removing a child from school for failing to follow the rules."

p 181 - "The crisis of criminalization in schools is an opportunity to focus on the policies, systems, and institutions – in other words, the structures – that place women and girls at risk of exploitation in private and public domains."

p 178 - "In our haste to teach children social rules, we sometimes fail to examine whether these rules are rooted in oppression – racial, patriarchal, or any other form." It's important to note that we should push back against these unjust oppressions, but that in addition, we do need to acknowledge that we need to support students as they move through an unjust world.

p 178 - "Rarely is there reflection upon the extend to which our reactions to girls' behaviors are rooted in whether they are being 'good girls' or whether they have actually presented a harm or threat to safety, personal or public."

It is possible for students to act in ways that make it difficult for others to work and learn, even if their behavior is not physically threatening or unsafe.

p 174 - "The idea that Black girls have to hold the pain of Black boys, even at their own expense, is a form of internalized sexism. But when it's couched as a matter of being a "ride or die" girlfriend, many girls never see that by accepting these conditions, they become complicit in their own oppression."

p 168 - "As long as there are juvenile detention facilities, the schools inside must uplift the potential of each student, not her deficits."

p 165 - "For Mecca, like for Deja, the effort to recover credits was a hurdle that was exacerbated by the perceived poor quality of instruction, the use of exclusionary discipline, and the inconsistent way in which districts accounted for credits."

p 162 - "Irrespective of age or grade level, girls in the juvenile court school were educated in a single classroom and learned the same material. This was a source of great discontent and anxiety among the girls... Another student said, '[This school] don't teach you nothing. I'm in high school. They're teaching middle school stuff."

p 157 - "Being excluded from their learning environment for asking questions or challenging authority – rather than for posing an actual physical threat to their own safety or to the safety of other students – further criminalizes Black girls in their learning spaces."

p 153 - "In my experience, children in carceral settings will create family structures in order to normalize what can be an otherwise dehumanizing experience... A more productive and effective approach might be to facilitate collaborative learning spaces where girls are encouraged to explore their relationships with each other along with why they reenact "arguments" as a way to demonstrate familial bonds."

p 147 - "According to the Center for Children's Law and Policy, more than one-third of detained youth nationwide report that staff have used unnecessary force in their interactions with them, and half reported that they were punished by staff "without cause."

p 141 - "For Black girls who were placed into public reformatories, the rehabilitative emphasis was not on making them more productive students, but rather on forming them into better servants for social elites."

p 128 - "They are looking at the Black girls. They are looking at the White girls [too], but they're looking at their faces." ... It's notable that Shamika felt boys were attracted to White girls' faces but to Black girls' bodies...

"So if they're not looking at your face, what do you think are they looking at?" I asked

"They're looking at your butt or your boobs," Shamika responded.

p 127 - "The fear, as suggested by the principal's comment, was that Deja's shorts might elicit inappropriate touching and behavior among the boys. Instead of focusing on developing a climate in which boys are taught not to touch girls' bodies, girls are sent home to change their clothes."

Not every question is relevant. In a room with 25-35 students, off-task behavior from one student invites it from others.

p 114 - "How can I talk to this person? How can I ask them questions? Why would I raise my hand... [when the response is] 'Why are you talking to me? Oh, do your work'? Okay, I just wanted to ask you a question. Okay, I won't bother you. Okay, I'm not going to do the work. F— it. You know? ... we don't feel like it's worth it if we don't connect with that person."

p 114 - "So, basically, what I hear you saying is that you want somebody who CARES about you," I said.

What does that look like in action?

p 101 - "We flag chronic absenteeism as an indicator of underperformance and alienation from school, but not necessarily as a pathway to (and symptom of) exploitation, delinquency, and incarceration." This also applies to drug use and trafficking.

p 100 - "Choosing a life on the street is ultimately about survival - and that's what schools are up against."

p 100 - "Children from middle-class or higher-income families often take for granted the social and material investments (manicures, new shoes, new clothes, extra-curricular activities) that reflect the inherent commercialism of a capitalist society."

p 99 - "Diamond, like other girls who come from poverty, understood that education is a tool for economic success, but she was also feeling pressured to find a way out of poverty sooner rather than later" - this reminds me a lot of the "Other Wes."

p 91 - "my mama always told me, like, people do to you what you ALLOW them to do to you." So this puts teachers and other authority figures in a double-bind: if they respond assertively, it may be perceived by the student as disrespect and can escalate the situation. A more subdued response can be perceived as weakness, leading to increases in misbehavior and boundary testing.

p 82, continued - "This practice was condemned by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education, the Alliance for Children, and many others... many administrators have opted out, perceiving recess as a 'waste of time.'"

p 82 - "In 1998, the district implemented a policy that granted school administrators the discretion to choose whether or not to allow recess. This resulted in two-thirds of Chicago schools opting for a 'closed campus,' which means that for nearly twenty-five years, there have been children attending Chicago public schools who have never experienced school recess."